Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-11
THURSDAY, AUGUST II, 1881.
War Possibilities.

War Possibilities.
1t is quite supposable that the pride
OF Americans is beyond being pricked,
but it is not pleasant to read OF Brit
ish war vessels being employed in
Canadian waters in apparent enforce
ment of the extreme pretensions OF
the Dominion of Canada. However,
If We shall emerge successfully from
this ordeal it will be, for the thou
sandth time, an instance of plucking
the flower safety from the nettle dan
ger. 1t has been pleasant incident
in the previous history of the United
States-a land which, with all its
shor tcomings, has been consecrated to
the greatest good of the greatest num-
ber and to a government of the peo-
pie, for the people and by the people
that it has always risen to every
emergency. Perhaps We have reached
that precise period in which the spur
is needed to prick our manhood back
to its heroic phases. A dispute be-
tween Great Britain and the United
States at this time would be a
wholesome thing for both countries.
1t would remove the points in dispute
from a petty jurisdiction to one OF
international significance, and would
introduce the principle in its decision
that when gentlemen meet compli-
ments pass; or, in other words, when
two thoroughly accoutered nations en-
tertain questions at variance there will
be caution and judgment in its abitra-
ment. Disputes have arisen before in
the intercourse of the two nations, and
they have been adjusted peaceably at
a time when the United States was
relatively far weaker, as respects Great
Britain, than now. The presumptions
are violent that with England subro-
gated to the Dominion of Canada as
the contesting party, the chances OF
reaching some kind of a satisfactory
solution of the Fisheries dispute are
amazingly increased. When the I'm
perial government shall adopt the
splenetic methods of her colonies war
will not be far distant.
No nation should ever suffer itself to
fall into a FOOLS Paradise. War is
liable to occur at any moment over the
most insignificant circumstances. The
United States, with at present sixty
five millions of people, has enjoyed
peace abroad so long that it has
almost ceased to regard a for
eign complication as possible. The
younger generation has naturally
grown to look upon a war with an
European power as an impossibility,
or, if not as impossibility, as a
thing of very improbable contin-
gency. The war OF 1872 has fallen
into the dim adumbra of the past.
The splendid achievements OF the
United States Navy in obliterating
the Algerian pirates is remembered
by very few. The Mexican war even
now is caviare to the general recollec-
ton. But what if we should have a
redhot war with England, right in
this day of grace 1887?
We may well ask, "Watchman,
what of the hour?" There is little
use in asking questions, however, un-
less one has at least the purpose of
answering them to the best of ones
ability. We can easily see that, at
the start, England would have the
immense advantage. Her power to
infiict injury is almost limitless. One
of the ablest engineer officers in the
Army of the United States con-
tributed, about year ago, a paper to
the North american Repiep, in which
he sustained his position that it
wo uld take the United States at least
five years to get under way plant
capable of turning out the guns which
are now moulded at the Wool
wich foundries in England, and
the Krupp foundries at Essen,
in Prussia. This would seem, at
the start, to place us at an immense
disadvantage. Unless instant devices
in the line of torpedoes and rams were
available our leading maritime cities
would appear to be the prey of the
spoiler. This is certainly not an en-.
couraging outlook. There might be
some consolation in the fact that cities
10 thoroughly given over to Anglo
mania as New York and Boston would
be the first and the principal sufferers
Thus far the course of England, ol
any other European power with a vel
equipped navy, would seem to be easy
Any of them might repeat for day
Caesars formula of came, saw,
conquered" If this were all, the people
Of the United States might well be
despondent in the face Of such odds.